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Aviation

To celebrate the festive period, FlightSim.Com is inviting members to redesign the existing FlightSim.Com logo, into a Christmas themed version. Bill Womack from Orbx has kindly agreed to be the judge, with the top three designs all receiving a First Class Membership for a year. The winning entry will be used for the duration of the Christmas period.

In the flight simulator world we can choose our weather, time of date, season and so on and take the exact flight we want. In the real world--things happen. Real world pilots of course do plenty of flight planning but events can occur that throw off the best plans, sometimes ending up with the plane landing somewhere other than intended. Airline captain Tony Vallillo shares several "diversionary tales" from his long career.

The 6th annual FlightSimCon convention announces initial sponsors, speakers, highlights and exhibitors for the 2018 event to be held in June in Dallas. For the first time,
FlightSimCon is being joined by Cockpit-Fest USA, an annual event for
cockpit enthusiasts with roots dating back to 1999. Top tier sponsor has been announced to be Gleim Aviation, well known for their pilot training materials.

Allan Jones brings us a story that combines some real aviation history and some flight simulation. Learn about WWII pilot Joy Lofthouse and the Air Transport Auxiliary who delivered newly built military aircraft. Then take on the challenge of an FSX flight in WWII Great Britain, flying VFR only through limited "balloon lanes".

During 2018 there will actually be two Cockpit-Fest USA events. "Warbirds On Parade 2018" will be held at the Cold War Air Museum in September. Cockpit-Fest USA will also team up with FlightSimCon which is holding their sixth annual flight simulator conference in Dallas during June.

The Blackburn Firebrand is not one of the more famous planes of WWII, but it does have an interesting history and some interesting flight characteristics as well. Martin La Grange tells the story of how the Firebrand came to be and developed during use, and also introduces the Alphasim version that you can use in your flight simulator.

Continuing from the previous "Going Places" installment where he arrived in Montevideo, Rodolfo Astrada turns around and heads back north. As before, he weaves in stories of the regions being traveled, including Uruguay and Madeira, and aircraft history, including the Boeing 727.

As you of course know, we run a variety of advertising on FlightSim.Com
in order to help pay the bills. One of the ad agencies we use, Network N, has asked for our users to complete a short survey. Your answers will help ensure that the ads we run are more relevant to your interests.

The Collings Foundation is one of the premier restorers and operators of historic aircraft, and through their "Wings Of Freedom Tour" bring a variety of WWII era aircraft all around the U.S. for people to experience. Earlier this week, Nels Anderson had the opportunity to visit one of their stops and fly in their B-25 Mitchell "Tondelayo", and shares his experience here in words and photos.

Justplanes.com presents their new St Maarten Airport video, plus videos of Saba and St Barths and old St Maarten. The video shows some of the best views of the famous beachfront runway in action, including the last year of the 747 at St. Maarten.

Mahan Air becomes the 271st airlines in the Justplanes.com Cockpit Series, with a video featuring the A300-600, A340-600 and for the first time in their HD series, the 747-300. Fly within Iran and Dubai with lots of presentations and explanations.

FlightSimCon 2017 was held this past weekend at KBDL in Connecticut. This event has grown to be a major gathering of flightsimmers and developers, the biggest such event in America. While it's impossible to really capture the event without attending, here we offer a report and some personal observations on what went on.